returned to dinner at half-past six furnished a repast in
every respect as good as my appetite. For breakfast I had coffee and a
due proportion of quartern loaf. After the first year of my employment
under Mr. Maudslay, my wages were raised to 15s. a week, and I then,
but not till then, indulged in the luxury of butter to my bread. I am
the more particular in all this, to show you that I was a thrifty
housekeeper, although only a lodger in a 3s. room. I have the old
apparatus by me yet, and I shall have another dinner out of it ere I am
a year older, out of regard to days that were full of the real romance
of life.

"On the death of Henry Maudslay in 1831, I passed over to the service
of his worthy partner, Mr. Joshua Field, and acted as his draughtsman,
much to my advantage, until the end of that year, when I returned to
Edinburgh, to construct a small stock of engineering tools for the
purpose of enabling me to start in business on my own account. This
occupied me until the spring of 1833, and during the interval I was
accustomed to take in jobs to execute in my little workshop in
Edinburgh, so as to obtain the means of completing my stock of
tools.[2] In June, 1834, I went to Manchester, and took a flat of an
old mill in Dale Street, where I began business. In two years my stock
had so increased as to overload the floor of the old building to such
an extent that the land lord, Mr. Wrenn, became alarmed, especially as
the tenant below me--a glass-cutter--had a visit from the end of a
20-horse engine beam one morning among his cut tumblers. To set their
anxiety at rest, I went out that evening to Patricroft and took a look
at a rather choice bit of land bounded on one side by the canal, and on
the other by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. By the end of the
week I had secured a lease of the site for 999 years; by the end of the
month my wood sheds were erected; the ring of the hammer on the smith's
anvil was soon heard all over the place; and the Bridgewater Foundry
was fairly under way. There I toiled right heartily until December
31st, 1856, when I retired to enjoy in active leisure the reward of a
laborious life, during which, with the blessing of God, I enjoyed much
true happiness through the hearty love which I always had for my
profession; and I trust I may be allowed to say, without undue vanity,
that I have left behind me some useful results of my labours in those
inventions with which my name is